The blood system is the highway of the body providing for transfer of materials, passage of cells, removal of debris, protection against disease and monitoring of bodily functions. In conjunction with other organs such as the liver and kidney, the body is cleansed of many deleterious substances and a homeostasis is maintained. In addition, the lymphocytic system acts to protect the body from invading organisms and foreign substances, by ingestion, lysis, coating, as well as other mechanisms.
In many situations, the host produces substances which enter the blood and which are deleterious to the host. Such situations include autoimmune diseases, septic shock, immune complex formation, and the like. In instances of kidney failure, kidney dialysis is required in order to maintain the proper level of salts and other components in the host.
Various devices have been developed and are being developed to separate components of the blood extracorporeally. In these situations, the method of separation may result in activation of processes which produce undesirable products. When the plasma is returned to the patient, who is normally in a physically weakened state, the presence of these deleterious substances can be quite harmful.
It is therefore of great interest to develop ways to be able to treat blood extracorporeally, while preventing the formation of undesirable substances or, in the alternative, selectively removing the undesirable substances, while retaining the desirable components in the blood for return to the host.